Now, would it be nice to think that your cellar door experience is so magical that even the most addicted customer could take a break? Perhaps, but the truth is that 84% of customers are already using their phones in stores so we think it’s a lot easier to embrace this reality. And that’s actually a good thing, because the same study found that those customers using their phones actually spent up to 25% as much.

So, we thought we’d break down the most common reasons people are using their phones in your cellar door and how you can use this to your advantage (and hopefully boost your average order size!)

Customers use mobiles to find information

For wineries, there is simply a lot of information that you can give people and the kind of things individuals want will vary greatly. Consider the difference between your wine club member and a first time visitor - the questions they have will likely be very different.

Now, of course your staff should be able to give these answers, but it is also essential to let customers access information in the way they want to do it.

How can wineries do that? Make sure your website is mobile optimised and that customers can find what they want. How do you know what information to prioritise? Easy. Think about the questions you do get asked in your cellar door and put that prominently on your site.

People use their phones to remember your wine

The fundamental point of a wine tasting is to try wine and find something you like enough to buy a bottle of. But that can be hard for customers if they’re not able to take their own notes and keep a record of the wines they’ve tried and liked.

Different customers will of course have different requirements. Some people will simply want to take a picture of the bottle to jog their memory. Others might want to write their own personal tasting notes, but the majority of people will turn straight to their mobile phones to do it.

One of the most unique features of WithWine is our Digital Menus.They allow wineries to create a list of wines for a tasting and allow customers to record the wines they tried, liked and want to buy as well as any personal notes. These lists can then be emailed directly to the customer (all with a handy newsletter sign up for wineries!) Designed for mobile phones and tablets, we think they are the perfect way to embrace what customers are already doing in your cellar door while also allowing you to capture valuable customer data.

People want to share their experiences

Going to a cellar door is an exciting experience for customers and the logical way to share that is through social media. While other industries have found the most common use of phones in store is looking up information, our guess is that for wineries it’s the pull of an Instagram post that wins out.

Now why is this a good thing? One of the greatest influences on people are the people they know. 92% of people will trust a recommendation from friends or family and what else is posting a picture to social media? Encourage your customers to post on Instagram or check in on Facebook to make sure you don’t miss out on this valuable word of mouth marketing. The easiest way to do this is to promote a winery hashtag in your cellar door (and even better, then you can use this for content.)

You can also take advantage of this for other reasons. Ask people to review your winery on Google or Trip Advisor while they’re in front of you. Many customers who are enjoying the experience will be more than happy to – but if you wait for them to do it after they’ve left the cellar door, they might simply forget!

Beacons are an affordable way to integrate tech into the cellar door experience. When they interact with customers' phones, you can play a video, take them on a virtual tour of the winemaking process or even bring them to the page to sign up for your wine club. These experiences are unique and engaging for customers and represent a chance to do something a little different.

Customers are paying for their wine!

With cash transactions steadily declining, alternative payment methods have been growing in popularity for the last few years and are likely to become an increasing reality.

A Roy Morgan study found that while only 6.1% of Australians had used contactless card payments in 2018, it was people under the age of 34 who were most commonly using the methods at almost double the average. With many wineries chasing the millennial dollar, you should expect to start seeing these payments more and more. The best thing? You shouldn’t have to do anything to start accepting them.

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